Grinz On Green Blog: AD of the Year Mark Hollis

May 25, 2012

By Steve Grinczel, Online Columnist

EAST LANSING, Mich. - For 40 minutes, Mark Hollis put into words what his Athletic Director of the Year award actually symbolizes.

From cherished relationships in the Michigan State University Athletics Department to erecting new scoreboards in Spartan Stadium to the softball team's situation to hockey uniforms to staging basketball games on aircraft carriers to the long hours put in by coaching and administration staffs to juggling family with work to a college football playoff to ticket prices and sales, Hollis ran the gamut in his Jenison Field House office Thursday afternoon.

Hollis received his honor as the nation's top AD from Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal/Daily at a ceremony Wednesday night in New York City. He was selected from a field of finalists that included: Michigan's Dave Brandon, Jeff Long of Arkansas, Ian McCaw of Baylor and Temple's Bill Bradshaw.

While he said he'll share the honor with everyone in the department, he's keeping the crystal trophy.

Here are 10 big highlights from Hollis' conference with members of the media:

1. On why it's easy to stay committed to MSU, and how his salary compares to other ADs in the conference and around the country - "My heart is to do what we can for student-athletes to put them in the best position we can. We have an athletic department that does a lot with a little. At the same time, you want to be compensated at where your counterparts are. We live in a society of comparisons. Am I underpaid or are others overpaid? I don't have an answer to that question. I will say this, I have met with President (Lou Anna K.) Simon over the last several months and we are at good place as far as my future at Michigan State. I'm very, very comfortable with where the Board of Trustees and administration has me and I think I'm going to be here for a long time. It's the people I work with. It's home. It's Midwestern values. The people up and down these halls - I'm blessed to work with."

2. Hollis got choked up while discussing what it meant to him to have sons T.R. and Michael and daughter Katy with him at the awards ceremony - "They had the opportunity to see New York City for the first time during a three-hour tour. My daughter got to meet Lady GaGa's dad at lunch and that was a big thrill for her. But being in this business is a challenge to family life. It's stressful. They get a lot of great opportunities and it has some disadvantages. I love this place. I love my family. To have them there was a thrill. All the good they get outweighs the frustrations."

3. Hollis said the Big Ten came out of last week's conference meetings in Chicago determined to protect the Football Bowl Subdivision regular season, the most relevant of all American major sports - "I don't know if anybody knows the answer about a playoff. If I could make a couple of statements, one would be that the regular season has to be the focus of whatever we do. I think we have to put more emphasis on what the student-athlete wants. I would like to see situation where we can keep the bowls as part of it and the biggest reason is that's what the student-athletes want. They want a bowl experience; they don't want an NFL playoff experience. I can change my mind quickly on some things, but I would not change my mind on those 12 games, seven of them on this campus. (The Rose Bowl is a big deal) to the Big Ten conference. From a student-athlete, from a coach, from an athletic director (point of view), and I think most fans want it as a key component. We have to weigh that against what is an NFL playoff system like? That doesn't really fit with where we want to go as an institution or where the schools in the conference want to go. I haven't seen a better solution and the Rose Bowl continues to be a very strong partner with the Big Ten Conference."

4. Strength of schedule needs to be taken into consideration in the four-team National Championship playoff scenario, just as it is for selecting the NCAA basketball tournament field - "I want to play tough non-conference games, we know we're going to play in a tough (Big Ten) division, we know we're going to play in a tough conference and we hope we play in a championship game. If you're 12-0 and play a schedule that's by option only, I think that strength of schedule has to be reviewed."

5. Fans better be prepared to be blown away by the new scoreboards going up in Spartan Stadium - "I knew the video boards were going to be large, but they are large. It's going to be exciting to go into the stadium. It'll be a little different look. I think the audio, and once we get all the bells and whistles going with the video, it's going to be an unbelievable experience for the fans. Out of necessity, we had to improve, just as with the hockey arena."

6. It appears Munn Ice Arena, which is functioning with obsolete refrigeration equipment that no longer can be repaired on a cost-effective basis, will be renovated as opposed to building a new home for Spartan hockey - "I think that's where we're leaning. The fund-raising has to get launched. As you go through the process, the logical things you have to do - for the student-athletes, office space, a grand entrance, which it doesn't have now, amenities for the fans - in essence it would be a new stadium within Munn. You always hope a major donor steps up, absolutely. And we still do; $20 million doesn't fall out of a tree."

7. Despite playing in a beautiful new stadium, the softball program finished with an 11-42 overall record and was winless in 23 Big Ten games. Nevertheless, Hollis remains committed to giving 19-year coach Jacquie Joseph and opportunity to revive the program - "It's very frustrating. When you look at your softball program as an AD, you're much more knowledgeable about what's going on when there's a 0-23 record. The athletic department is not happy with a 0-23 record. I don't think the easy solution to the problem is terminating somebody that's a coach. I think you have to go through a process of what goes in and what comes out. Have I done everything as an athletic director to make that program as successful as possible? I don't give up on people. Jacquie Joseph is a value to this athletic department. She is embraced by a lot of people, and I'm going to do everything in my power to see that she has an opportunity to be successful. We've had some very frank conversations and she feels the same way I do. We're going to give it a go and see if we can pull some magic out. Softball is extremely important. It's easy to fire a coach. It's not easy to retain a coach who's 0-23, but that's on my shoulders to help her and guide her. She has my support right now, and we'll see where it can go."

8. Despite an increase in football ticket prices via a required Spartan Fund membership, season ticket sales are up over 6,000 from last season. Push-back on the increase was minimal, and with sales frozen for the time being, ticket holders were able to try to change seat locations online for the first time - "The technology has gone extremely well. We got a lot of good feedback and received pictures from wives of their husbands spending hours looking at the (computer) screen. I think it's an opportunity for people to have input on how they're going to experience the game, and all of that's gone extremely well. We've taken a pause to see how everything shakes out with the (seating) movements, and we'll do another assessment around June 1 to see if we'll open sales back up again. I don't like to pay more and I don't like to charge more for anything. We've been pretty conservative in what we've done here, and we didn't just come out and say we're going to charge more. A lot of thought and a lot of consideration went into it. Any time you impact people's livelihood and spending money, you're concerned. We're very pleased that Michigan State has fans who want to have a good program and are willing to invest in it. We still have some of the greatest return for the dollar spent, and we're bringing programming in right now so those Saturdays are a better experience from the time you drive on campus until you leave. We want people comfortable and want to make sure the experience is good. Disney is the happiest place on earth, we want to make this the second-happiest place on earth."

9. Spartan Stadium will continue to go through infrastructure improvements, and may even be expanded someday - "The unfortunate thing is, there are a lot of things that nobody sees . . . , and it's difficult to fund-raise for. We're working with the university on a number of things that we'd like to remove from the stadium and it would add up to access for fans. There are a number of conversations going on in that direction. You look at concourse on one side versus the other side, it's much (different). As you look at long-term planning, there are plans for innovation to the concourse. The museum has a lot of storage space in the stadium, which a lot of people don't know about. There are a lot of different uses in there, and the main thing is if you can open up access to that concourse, it relieves the stress and pressure for the fans on Saturday. I'm not announcing that we're expanding the stadium, but there are designs that are part of the 2020 Plan that give you the opportunity to do that if you want to go there. I'm very comfortable as a marketing guy and an AD where the numbers are right now."

10. MSU's basketball game on the aircraft carrier last November, the world-record breaking hockey game in Spartan Stadium set the stage for all that have followed, a world-record crowd for the basketball game in Detroit's Ford Field was a major coup and plans are still in the works to play a game in Greece, and such innovations are part of the reason Hollis was named AD of the year, but those type of things can't obscure the athletic department's primary mission - "I hope most of the focus is on the routine which doesn't capture the attention. Winning football championships, winning basketball championships, what Stacy (Slobodnik-Stoll) is doing with (women's) golf and what Jake (Boss) has done out here (with baseball) - that's got to be your core focus. Those special events cannot detract from that mission. I do believe those special events do bring attention to Michigan State and you go back to that innovation, which I think is important on campus. Next year's going to be a little bit about here, about home, about our history."

And 1. Although MSU football will celebrate the 75th anniversary of its first bowl team - which played in the 1938 Orange Bowl and wore black and gold uniforms and winged helmets - there are no plans for a special uniform along the lines of the Nike Pro Combat gear the Spartans wore last season against Michigan, but the hockey team will get a retro-look alternative uniform which Coach Tom Anastos has helped design - "I don't anticipate having a new football uniform this year. I think Nike has a lot of focus with the NFL right now. (There will be) a third uniform for hockey that kind of has an old look. We did the same with baseball."

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